Yan Lo Crew - Need advice

[IntereoVivo]

Hi everyone. I'm coming back to Malifaux after taking almost all of 2nd edition off and was wondering what I should buy to play Yan Lo. 

Is Yan Lo playable as a Resser? I prefer Ressers to Ten Thunders as a faction.

Thanks for your advice.

[Paddywhack]

He is. I'm not the biggest fan of his new mechanic, but I'm still testing it out. With Keywords being a thing, you still get to take all the models designed with Yan Lo in mind. The main difference would be any out of Keyword models you want to take as well as generic upgrades available to each faction.

In last edition Yan Lo was definitely better in TT. Now I think it's a little more balanced. There are some good versatile models and even out of keyword models you can take in Rezzers with him so you won't be missing much from TT. The Rezzer generic upgrades are pretty darn good too. 

[Modernpenguin]

He is definitely playable in resser! I absolutely adore his new mechanic, you really feel like an elite crew with Yan Lo at the reins! 
The only real difference between factions are the versatile selection, and the upgrades. 
What do you have currently? It sounds like he is getting a new crewbox in the future, with the new minion, the gokudo, so that might be worth waiting for? 

Boxes that fit the keyword (doesn't matter if you are ten thunder or resser): 
Yin the penangalan
Izamu the armor 
Komainu (sold out everywhere, but you might find it somewhere)
Toshiro, the daimyo (sold out everywhere, but you might find it somewhere)
The Undying box has Manos, an all around good schemer for resser, and particularly nasty in Yan Lo. 
Sun Quiang 

Of these, the only one I consider absolutely core is Izamu, who is your major beater.. His reliquary giving armor is awesome as well. 
However, he is TT this edition, so you can only use him in your yan lo crew (or other TT crews). 
Yin is very different from last edition. She is a fast anti-scheme runner, rather than a tarpit model. 
Toshiro summons Ashigaru and makes minions awesome
Sun Quiang is a super-heal bot. I typically don't need it with the amount of heal and ressurection that Yan lo got build into his own kit. 


His current crewbox comes with his totem, chiaki, himself and 3 ashigaru. Chiaki is vital in every crew, mostly due to a trigger in her bonus action that can give reliquaries (the upgrades your ancestors drop) before any of your ancestors dies, which make your ressurection mechanic much easier. Yan lo is rather fragile in the early game, Ashigaru can really help shut down any attempt to kill him due to their 'take the hit' ability, where they can redirect damage to themselves for a card. With HtK and armor +1, they can tank a lot, and if you put the resser upgrade 'grave spirits touch' on them, they get regen 2 + terrifying 11 on them as well. 

[IntereoVivo]

Thanks! I don't have any models for his crew currently, and most of them seem hard to find. Do you think it would be worth playing the Neverborn crews I have while waiting for his new box? Any word when it will come out?

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 minutes ago, IntereoVivo said:

Thanks! I don't have any models for his crew currently, and most of them seem hard to find. Do you think it would be worth playing the Neverborn crews I have while waiting for his new box? Any word when it will come out?

I get the impression a lot of masters are getting box reorganising to make them less clunky to purchase.

Yan Lo seems particularly likely to be one of those masters. I would suggest to either buy all his boxes from 2e, or to wait and only grab 3e boxes for him (until you know contents of 3e boxes and can mix and match).

Just a rough impression I get. Someone else may know more.

[CD1248]

I've seen the Valedictorian hired to good effect OOK, excellent target to supercharge by putting a reliquary on.

[Deathinabox]

My thoughts on Yan Lo purchases. I think you need Manos, Chiaki, and komainu. You do not need Toshiro and the Ashigaru as they don't bring a lot to the crew and play somewhat counter to it's strength

[Modernpenguin]

11 hours ago, IntereoVivo said:

Thanks! I don't have any models for his crew currently, and most of them seem hard to find. Do you think it would be worth playing the Neverborn crews I have while waiting for his new box? Any word when it will come out?

Honestly, if you can wait, it probably is.

 

9 hours ago, Deathinabox said:

My thoughts on Yan Lo purchases. I think you need Manos, Chiaki, and komainu. You do not need Toshiro and the Ashigaru as they don't bring a lot to the crew and play somewhat counter to it's strength

At the moment you can't really avoid the ashigaru 🙂 Chiaki is forced in the box. 
I disagree on the toshiro + ashigaru notion. Ashigaru are great anti-snipe tech (and for a 5ss minion having armor +1, HtK 2" melee with 2-3-5 stat is pretty fine to me. 
Usually you don't have the SS for a ton of minions in this crew, but toshiro can refill your board if nessecary. 

[Paddywhack]

3 hours ago, Modernpenguin said:

I disagree on the toshiro + ashigaru notion. Ashigaru are great anti-snipe tech (and for a 5ss minion having armor +1, HtK 2" melee with 2-3-5 stat is pretty fine to me. 
Usually you don't have the SS for a ton of minions in this crew, but toshiro can refill your board if nessecary. 

Agreed. I really like Ashigaru and Toshiro brings another Reliquary to hand out with Chiaki. While many find Yan Lo to be an elite crew, having a few harder than usual minions around to much things up seems to really help. The anti-charge aura can be a real pain for some crews costing them an AP to walk. 

[Nikodemus]

I play Yan TT if that changes anything. I haven't tried Toshiro yet, nor am I inspired to based on theoryfaux, but Ashigaru are pretty nice. Not my default hire, no. That's Gokudo. But they bring in cheapest take-the-hit, are quite durable for the cost and importantly have Extended Reach. Such a lovely ability if you have melee crews with any regularity. I often hire 1 for reasons. Few times I've gone for 2.

On 7/26/2019 at 2:36 AM, IntereoVivo said:

Any word when it will come out?

https://www.wyrd-games.net/news/2019/4/29/wyrd-retailer-newsletter-launch-plans

Going off that list, "not before October at the earliest".

[Houseballey]

2 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

[...] I haven't tried Toshiro yet, nor am I inspired to based on theoryfaux [...]

Mind expanding on this? Or at least pointing me on the right direction so that i can understand why?

[Nikodemus]

6 hours ago, Houseballey said:

Mind expanding on this? Or at least pointing me on the right direction so that i can understand why?

Big part of it is how I build & play my Yan crews. Toshiro is a 9ss support piece heavily focused on minion melee models. My core for most games has been:

• Yan Lo + Upgrade
• Soul Porter
• Manos
• Izamu
• Chiaki
• Gokudo

I've experimented a few times replacing Izamu for something, but for vast majority I've played and been happy with this 33ss core. I've got credible threats in Manos and Izamu. If I were to add Toshiro here I'd have 8ss left for cache, upgrades and minions for him to buff. So that clearly doesn't work.

I could replace Izamu with Toshiro, leaving me 18ss to spend on cache, upgrades and minions for Toshiro to buff. But then I start asking myself, what minions? Sure a throng of Ashigaru/Komainu will probably stick better than an equivalent ss Izamu, but there's diminished hitting power I feel. My list is less scary. But maybe I'm just over attached to fielding "big scary models". There are some offensively minded ook minions I could bring. And I probably will at some point. I do intend to try Toshiro eventually, he's just really low on the list for now.

So it's not that Toshiro is necessarily bad (he might be, I don't know), but rather he really doesn't fit into "my" Yan Lo. Maybe "my" Yan Lo list will end up less restrictive as I get more experience with him. That could change things. Toshiro wouldn't be the first model in 2e or 3e I'm really down on on paper, but end up liking once I get a few games in.

edit: TT also has little to no corpse generation so I can't hire Toshiro with the near guaranteed turn 1 Ashigaru summon. That's different for you ressers.

[Paddywhack]

6 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

Toshiro is a 9ss support piece heavily focused on minion melee models.

This is the big problem. As described above, Yan Lo tends to field lots of elite models and not as many minions. Having said that, Toshiro can still be useful, but you have to focus on bringing minions to really get the most use out of him. I think him and a minion or two can be their own little ball of models to secure an area or claim an objective, but it can end up being a lot of points and not suitable for every strat/scheme. 

I mostly bring him for the occasional summon - though it is harder than it used to be. Getting an early Ashigaru can help tie up enemy letting your elite models do their thing and a late game Ashigaru might be just what's needed to finish something off. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Worth noting that Toshiro + grave digger is a potent combo. GD is a minion, and the summoned ashigaru are also minions. For sixteen points, that is a pretty scary piece of zone control (imagine it on turf war + dig their graves for instance). Even with no other minions.

I don't know much about Yan Lo, but that package is on my wish list for my Molly crew.

If you do use him, I'd be careful not to go overboard. Him +2 minions is plenty strong. Him +5 minions is possibly a waste (you need to cover other parts of the board).

[Thunderstruck]

On 7/29/2019 at 11:28 AM, Nikodemus said:

edit: TT also has little to no corpse generation so I can't hire Toshiro with the near guaranteed turn 1 Ashigaru summon. That's different for you ressers.

As a Newbie... is there a way to get corpse marker in TT, working well in a Yan Lo crew?

I would love to run Toshiro 🙂

 

[Graf]

On 7/25/2019 at 8:35 PM, Modernpenguin said:

Komainu (sold out everywhere, but you might find it somewhere)
Toshiro, the daimyo (sold out everywhere, but you might find it somewhere)
The Undying box has Manos, an all around good schemer for resser, and particularly nasty in Yan Lo. 

It may depend where you're located but generally spoken... no, they're not sold out. Seems like you don't know about the M3E boxes. "Eternal Servitude" contains Manos, Yin, Toshiro and the Ashigarus. "Descendants and Guardians" gives you Chiaki, Sun Quian and Komainus. All that's still missing is the new Yan Lo core box with the new Gokudo.

Edit: Okay, only after posting I see that the thread has been brought back from the dead... 😅

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 hours ago, Thunderstruck said:

As a Newbie... is there a way to get corpse marker in TT, working well in a Yan Lo crew?

I would love to run Toshiro 🙂

 

I'm not sure about TT, but I don't spot anything on the app. Could ask in the TT forums, but I think most people in TT don't take him.

Ressers of course have a dozen ways to do it.

[Adran]

5 hours ago, Thunderstruck said:

As a Newbie... is there a way to get corpse marker in TT, working well in a Yan Lo crew?

I would love to run Toshiro 🙂

 

I think you're stuck with the good old fashioned "Kill things". 

[Trample]

His box is now on the upcoming releases page for December!

 

[Graf]

Neat! Then 2021 I'll finally be able to play the master I originally wanted to start the game with xD. 

[Cranky Old Man]

New Izamu  is cool but I’ll keep using my tortoise!

[hydranixx]

On 7/30/2019 at 4:32 AM, Paddywhack said:

This is the big problem. As described above, Yan Lo tends to field lots of elite models and not as many minions. Having said that, Toshiro can still be useful, but you have to focus on bringing minions to really get the most use out of him. I think him and a minion or two can be their own little ball of models to secure an area or claim an objective, but it can end up being a lot of points and not suitable for every strat/scheme. 

I think traditional Retainer Minions are kind of meh, but a humble Rotten Belle is great here. This is the kind of crew that can continually heal it, which is useful in helping overcome its terrible Df and Wp stats. In return it can Lure models around, which helps overcoming the crew's relatively low speed, and the Belle is a great place to store a Reliquary upgrade or two. The Focus that Toshiro can hand out here is perfect for that Lure. 

But the main reason I like the Belle is that Scarlet Temptation is really abusive in his crew. Come turn 3, Yan Lo hands out 3 or 4 attacks (If he takes Blood Ascendant) at CA7 for 3/4/5 that target WP. When that happens, Scarlet Temptation's  to Wp aura is basically is a death sentence to anything without Armour. Almost every Ancestor model also has at least one Attack Action that target Wp, so they appreciate the aura too.

 

Honestly, next time I play Yan Lo, I might even bring 2 Belles 

[Maniacal_cackle]

25 minutes ago, hydranixx said:

I think traditional Retainer Minions are kind of meh, but a humble Rotten Belle is great here. This is the kind of crew that can continually heal it, which is useful in helping overcome its terrible Df and Wp stats. In return it can Lure models around, which helps overcoming the crew's relatively low speed, and the Belle is a great place to store a Reliquary upgrade or two. The Focus that Toshiro can hand out here is perfect for that Lure. 

But the main reason I like the Belle is that Scarlet Temptation is really abusive in his crew. Come turn 3, Yan Lo hands out 3 or 4 attacks (If he takes Blood Ascendant) at CA7 for 3/4/5 that target WP. When that happens, Scarlet Temptation's  to Wp aura is basically is a death sentence to anything without Armour. Almost every Ancestor model also has at least one Attack Action that target Wp, so they appreciate the aura too.

 

Honestly, next time I play Yan Lo, I might even bring 2 Belles 

Redchapel out of keyword for scarlet temptation seems to be a big thing. Reva loves taking Bete Noire. It's frustrating that Redchapel seems to have some of the worst willpower attacks xD

[Plaag]

3 hours ago, hydranixx said:

I think traditional Retainer Minions are kind of meh, but a humble Rotten Belle is great here. This is the kind of crew that can continually heal it, which is useful in helping overcome its terrible Df and Wp stats. In return it can Lure models around, which helps overcoming the crew's relatively low speed, and the Belle is a great place to store a Reliquary upgrade or two. The Focus that Toshiro can hand out here is perfect for that Lure. 

But the main reason I like the Belle is that Scarlet Temptation is really abusive in his crew. Come turn 3, Yan Lo hands out 3 or 4 attacks (If he takes Blood Ascendant) at CA7 for 3/4/5 that target WP. When that happens, Scarlet Temptation's  to Wp aura is basically is a death sentence to anything without Armour. Almost every Ancestor model also has at least one Attack Action that target Wp, so they appreciate the aura too.

 

Honestly, next time I play Yan Lo, I might even bring 2 Belles 

bad plan, watch not so empty playes yan lo, this is how master must be played

[dannydb]

2 hours ago, Plaag said:

bad plan, watch not so empty playes yan lo, this is how master must be played

Yanlo is a very versatile master with lots of diffrent play styles 

play what works for you